NEW RAIDERS WOMEN'S TEAM
April 16th 2007

Plymouth Racers basketball team are to join the Kularoos Raiders organisation, it has been announced.

Next season, the Racers will compete in Division Two South of the England Basketball League under the Raiders banner. In recent years, the Racers have been run by player-coach Julie Pinch, but with her retirement last month, the team decided the time was right to become part of Raiders.

The Raiders have already committed themselves to starting new under-18 and U16 girls' teams, along with an U14 girls' training squad next season. It means that in just a few months, Raiders have moved from having no female teams at all, to having four, and looking to seriously develop female basketball in Plymouth, Devon and Cornwall.

Raiders head of development Dave Briggs said: "Hopefully, the Raiders name will help elevate the women's game in this area and help attract new players to the city from around the country. It also provides us with continuity for our new girls junior teams. When players are too old to represent the under-18s, they have a team to move into."

Briggs added: "We're very excited to have the Raiders Women become part of the club. Hopefully together we can take the women's game to a whole new level. Our long-term aim is to get the team promoted to Division One and for our junior teams to turn out players capable of playing at that level."

Christie Robinson, the new coach of the Raiders Women, said: "This is an exciting move for the team. Racers basketball has had a long and succesful history, but we feel that the time has come to be part of a larger organisation and raise the profile of women's basketball in the city, and provide a through-flow of players for the future.

"The girls are very positive about the move and looking forward to the challenges of the upcoming season."

The Raiders Women will be running a pub quiz to help them raise money to play in a tournament in Finland later in the summer. The quiz will be run at the Clovelly Bay Inn at Turnchapel on Wednesday, May 9, starting at 7.30pm. Tickets are £10 and will include food and entry to the quiz.

Anyone interested in trying out for the Raiders Women team can email development@plymouthraiders.com or call 07815 943312